This blog is dedicated to Computer RolePlaying Games (CRPG) that have been released a long time ago or new games with CRPG heritage and that I will revisit in one way or another. I will either replay them or write about the hidden gems well worth playing today. Games will be played through Dosbox or WinUAE.

Currently playing: Sword Coast Legends, Skyrim

April 12, 2013

Vampire: The Masquerade - Won

My small Coterie eventually came to New York. We had managed to get some Interpol ID:S for us so we were able to talk to a special agent in New York that had the Giovannis place under surveillance and that the code for it was being cracked by FBI. We where told that we would not be allowed to take part in the raid so we begun to investigate the streets to find another way.

Samuel turns out to be a loyal servant to me

Here we rescued Samuel, a vampire, that was attacked by his own coterie. He volunteered to join us and so I brought him along. He said he knew someone who could tap into FBI:s network to get the codes and brought us to an apartment to a crazy guy named dev/null. He said we should place a listener down in the sewers at a special place for him to be able to catch the network traffic from FBI.

The Sewers

We went down into the sewers and fought ghoul rats and other creatures there in the tunnels for several levels until we found the place we looked for. After having placed the item there we returned back to the hacker dev/null and he gave us access codes to get into the Giovannis place.

Giovannis place was full of fights through his factory-like complex. Most rooms contains chests and foes often leave things behind them but it was a long time ago I found anything worthwhile. The looting part of the game is broken since midgame. More of that in my coming review.

We eventually found Giovanni himself behind his desk and computer and he offered himself to make a deal with us. I threatened him to force him to reveal that the stuff he imports from the shipments goes to Orsi international. He only makes a lot of profit from it. When he was about to say more, Pink took the lead and killed him in front of our eyes. Pink revealed himself as a spy that would see that we never learned of Vukodlak (the ancient vampire that was about to be awaken) whereabouts. Pink then fled and I have never seen him in the game since. I had to reload this part only to be able to strip him of valuable equipment before he left the group. I never liked him anyway....

We looked around the city and found Orsis former apartment that now was on sale. There Lily found blood trace from her mistress that had dissappeared. Our search took us down to the storage area where we found the mistress in work of doing a painting by blood. She had to deliver it to Orsis New Year party later this night. During our conversation we where interrupted by the collectors of the painting and a small fight begun. The opponents was easily disposed of. We now took the painting to be delivered at the party with the hope of getting in ourselves.

We entered Orsis factory complex and searched for him for several levels until we found him in his office. As always he mocked us and said we where too late for the resurrection of the ancient evil. A short fight started but ended with me throwing him out of the window down to a lava pool in the factory.

A reasonable punishment for his crimes

We learned that the resurrection would take place in the Cathedral of Flesh in the city and went there to once and for all put this evil to permanent death. It was a pretty interesting complex full of War Ghouls and their greater cousins, demon hounds and other denizens of evil. We fought our way down the church....

...until we finally met Vukodlak himself with Anezka beside him. A fierce combat ensued but by using prison of ice on him all the time he was pretty easy to overcome. Or rather, he fled and throw us into the deeper levels by opening up a trapdoor in the floor.

Anezka is seen to the right

Anezka was never part of the combat and we learned in these deep dungeons about her diary. Her soul was trapped and she tried to resist the evil for centuries until she decided it was hopeless and begun to embrace it. But only to gain power against Vukodlak himself.

She had to do terrible things but had no choice if she were to survive. When we had climbed our way up to level one again. We met Vukodlak in a final fight in the big church hall. This time he transformed to a demonlike creature which was very tough to defeat. I had almost no blood reserves at all left but managed to use potence, and celerity (fast moving) and use all my blood reserves to continuously freeze him and after a long battle he died at my sword. But it took three or four attempts.

Since Anzeka was his ghould she would die without him but we had the chance for some final words and she was as beloved as I remembered her centuries ago. I took her last life sign by biting her and the she died but with a happy face.

And that was the end of the game.

I thought the game ending was pretty nice and the music that surrounded the ending scenes. I like the story but lacked any alternatives or opportunities in the few dialogues the game offered. My next post will naturally be a review of this game.

2 comments:

There are alternate endings, depending on your Humanity. If you have a high Humanity, you can only get the Good ending. If your humanity is middling (around 40 or 50) you can access all three endings: Good, Evil, and Bad Ending. If your humanity is extremely low (around 10), you'll get the Bad Ending.

If you like old-school RPGs, you´ll love this!

Who am I ?

Stockholm, Sweden
I grew up with Commodore 64 and Amiga and the first CRPG that totally blowed me away was Bard´s Tale for C-64 in 1988.
New RPGs tends to be more and more simplistic and consolified so I have begun to return to the roots to feed my hunger for CRPGS.
Professionally I work as a systems developer and project leader.